Podcast Corner: Whistle Through the Shamrocks is a riot of laughs
Nicola Coughlan created Whistle Through the Shamrocks with playwright Camilla Whitehill.
How to describe the plot of new comedy podcast Whistle Through the Shamrocks… Well before we try, maybe the only thing you need to know is the cast of actors that feature throughout the six-part series.
It’s written and created by Derry Girls and Bridgerton star Nicola Coughlan and playwright Camilla Whitehill and stars the vocal work of, in no particular order and among many others, Jamie Beamish (also seen in Derry Girls and Bridgerton), Stephanie Beatriz (Brooklyn Nine-Nine), Jonathan Van Ness, and Bridgerton’s Ben Miller, who is responsible for the undoubted highlight of the series so far, a rap in episode three.
A sample of the bars he drops: “I’m clearly a Tory cos I hate the poor, my bank accounts live strictly offshore.” Miller plays the evil English landlord Cromwell Dumblington, “a tall, imposing man, with stacks of cash visible in his pockets”. He’s decided to knock down the homestead of the impoverished O’Flanerhyn family, who have 15-18 babies, in Ballysnavougherenn, in order to build a chip factory.
Whistle Through the Shamrocks, from the title to the artwork, is a parody of as many Irish cliches as you can think of. Auntie Bernadette survives a crossing from the US of A aboard a coffin ship (having first made the trip over on the Titanic), Granny Maureen sounds a warning, citing de Valera, “The English are so tight they’d peel an orange in their pocket and then steal the donkey right from under ya”; while the patriarch, Paddy Jonny Tommy Paddy sings a song Michael Collins taught him while they were hiding from British bullets in the GPO during the 1916 Rising.
It’s at this point that the actors break the fourth wall to ask when the play is set. Their response: “We wanted it to feel like a timeless piece of art.”
The main plot hinges around Paddy Jonny Tommy Paddy’s son, also named Paddy Jonny Tommy Paddy (keep up!), who on his birthday falls in love with Cromwell Dumblington’s daughter, Eloisa Louisa. When her father finds out, he does everything in his power to make sure she goes elsewhere so she doesn’t fall pregnant at age 16, “like all Irish people do”.
Whistle Through the Shamrocks is a laugh-a-minute riot. Now, inspired by Mammy’s work ethic, I’m off to plough the fields, slaughter a pig, put 45 rashers and sausages on the grill, rustle up a roast dinner for a snack, put on the potato crop for next year, and cook a three-course meal for roughly 50-75 guests, including a vegan option, for a wedding just announced for tomorrow.
